Estella is the arch super-bitch, the girl for whom the term was invented. She’s a cow, a merciless little viper whose ability to spread discord in men’s hearts is breathtaking; she can crunch them under the heel of just one of her pretty satin shoes. She is all powerful, a devastatingly sexy gorgon who is the ultimate refutation of the argument that Dickens only liked insipid little women such as David Copperfield’s Dora.

Miss Havisham, Estella’s mentor, has trained her to break boys’ hearts, and her first victim is Great Expectations’ adorable hero Pip. Is she redeemed by his true affections by the end? Dickens couldn’t decide: he wrote two endings. I like the one where the beautiful ice queen never melts.